Brendan Lau the head of consumer for Lenovo has not returned our calls.

The move by Lenovo to extend their retailers, comes shortly after arch rival Hewlett Packard moved to selling product via Aldi and Big W. HP have also hired a former Toshiba retail executive who has been given an explicate brief to grow direct sales via the HP web site.

HP has refused to answer questions as to why they are expanding their online sales operation when they have relationships with retailers such as JB Hi Fi and Harvey Norman.
Insiders have told ChannelNews that HP is looking to achieve 20% or more of all sales via the Companies own online web site which is why they are now hiring personnel to directly compete with their own retailers.

Several manufacturers in the PC market claim that their online operations are used to sell stock “returned from retailers”.

“Some of this stock has had a software or minor hardware problem which has been fixed and the device given a brand new full warranty” said a HP source.

David Richards has been writing about technology for more than 30 years. A former Fleet Street, Journalist He wrote the Award Winning Series on the Federated Ships Painters + Dockers Union for the Bulletin that led to a Royal Commission. He is also a Logie Winner. for Outstanding Contribution To TV Journalism with a story called The Werribee Affair. In 1997, he built the largest Australian technology media Company and prior to that the third largest PR Company that became the foundation Company for Ogilvy PR. Today he writes about technology and the impact on both business and consumers.